The present invention relates to a wheeled stretcher used to transfer a person lying on a bed such as an invalid, a bed-ridden elderly, or a physically handicapped person.
A wheeled stretcher having a patient transfer belt as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Publication No. Sho. 51-60192 has commonly been known. There, the width of the cart of the wheeled stretcher supporting the bed frame is approximately the same as the width of the bed frame.
A wheeled stretcher having a support at either the left or right side of the cart and a foldable stretcher opposite the support and mounted so as to be lifted and lowered has also been proposed, as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Publication No. Sho. 55-19531.
With these conventional wheeled stretchers, however, it is not possible to place the bed frame onto a bed close to the person lying on the bed or to transfer the person lying on the bed mat atop the bed frame by laying a transfer sheet under the person. Even if the bed frame could be overlapped onto the bed, it is difficult to transfer the person lying on the bed onto the bed mat as there is no transfer sheet to transfer the person lying on the frame easily onto the bed mat.
For improvement of such conventional arts, the applicants of the present invention have already several inventions which are now applying for Japanese and U.S. patents. The application numbers are Patent Application Sho. 57-145161, Sho. 57-201716, Sho. 58-053181, Sho. 57-201716, and Sho. 120356 for the Japanese patents and U.S. Pat. No. 590,745 for the U.S. patent.
The movable bed vehicle of the U.S. Patent has an elevator outside the truck at either the left or right side. It is disadvantageous in that a person lying on a bed can only be transferred from either the right or left of the bed frame with the elevator standing in the way.
The patents cited in the application include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,259,756 (PACE), 3,786,523 (SELE), 4,087,873 (OHKAWA), 4,077,073 (KOLL, ET AL.), 3,765,037 (DUNKIN), 3,541,617 (CLAMAN), 3,493,979 (KOLL ET AL.), 2,905,952 (REICHERT ET AL.), 3,015,114 (SEIB), 2,668,301 (BROUILLETTE), 2,528,048 (GILLELAND), 4,262,375 (LILIENTHAL), 3,969,328 (COX), 3,099,020 (GARFIELD), Re. 28,056 (STEVENS), and 2,630,583 (GILLELAND). Among these, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,786,523 (SELE) and 4,262,375 (LILIENTHAL) are comparatively similar to the present invention. In both cases, however, a patient is placed on a support member having a hard frame and the support member is moved on a rail for transferring the patient. Such devices tend to be intricate and are not easily applicable to beds in general.